Answer
How do I write a brief for an MVP developer?
Short answer
Describe the problem, who has it, and what a user must be able to do — not how to build it. One page is enough: the user, the problem, the three things the product must do, what success looks like, your deadline and your budget. Naming technologies you do not understand makes the brief worse, not better.
The most useful brief a non-technical founder can write is short and entirely about outcomes. A developer can choose a database. Only you can explain that your customers are tradespeople who will be using this on a phone with dirty hands in bright sunlight, which changes far more about the build than a technology choice would.
State your budget and your deadline. Founders often hide both, hoping for a better price, and it wastes everybody's time: a developer who knows the constraints can tell you what fits inside them, which is the conversation you actually want.
Include what you do not want. An explicit exclusions list is the single most valuable paragraph in a brief, because it is the one that prevents an argument later.
And say what success looks like in a measurable way. 'Twenty bookings in the first month' tells a developer which parts matter. 'A great user experience' tells them nothing.
The numbers
- Length
- One page. Longer briefs are not better briefs.
- Include
- Who the user is, the problem, the three must-have actions
- Include
- Budget, deadline, and what success looks like in numbers
- Include
- An explicit list of what is out of scope
- Leave out
- Technology choices you cannot justify, and wireframes of screens you invented
- Useful extra
- A link to a product that does something similar, with a note on what you like about it
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